The following photo is typical of Dad. He is talking with Mother's sisters Emily and Elaine. The little smile on his face is one that I have seen many times when he is joking with folks and enjoying himself.
Dad's job was physically taxing. As a result, he had medical problems. At one point he was in a body cast after rotator cuff surgery.
Another time he had something wrong - not sure just what - with his neck and spine. His doctor tried having him stretch those areas by wearing this contraption and attaching it to a closet door. The object was putting weight on the affected areas by "hanging' on the door. My sister and I delighted in yelling, "Mother! Dad's hanging on the closet again!"
Mother's nearest relatives were her sister Emily, her husband Ronnie Lindblad and their family, who lived on a farm near Svea. We spent a great deal of time with them. In the summer, a favorite activity was a picnic and swimming at Big Kandy Lake. This photo shows right to left, Dad, Ronnie's Dad Lawrence, Ronnie, Em, and Ronnie's sister Margene, at the park by the lake in about 1956.
About 1954 - 55 my family spent time at a small beach at Lake Florida, near Willmar. It was private and had a nice, sandy beach and was great for swimming. There came a day when Dad dragged home a small travel trailer that was in pretty bad shape. Mother was embarrassed to have it sitting in the driveway. Dad, however, was delighted. He spent nights and weekends first fixing up the inside and then he went to work on the outside with a can of pale-yellow house paint. When the repairs were complete, he rented our favorite Lake Florida beach spot, set the trailer on it and we had a wonderful summer!
My family took only one vacation while I still lived at home. We went to the Dakota Black Hills and Badlands around 1954. One stop was at a tourist trap meant to look like an old west town, complete with saloon. Dad, loving a joke of any kind and being a teetotaler, he got a kick out of posing in front of the saloon, pretending to be drunk.
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